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In April 2007, SHOWstudio staged 'Revue' - a live ‘happening’ in association with PlayStation 3. The event was attended by an intimate audience of fifty guests at a secret London location, all action broadcast live on SHOWstudio. The dynamic revelry of the revue performances was documented by the guests themselves: their impromptu imagery is showcased here in stills and film.

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Audition Gallery

From sleazy cabaret, conceptual ‘shoe’ projects to superfluous clowns, there really is no faulting the creative diversity of the SHOWstudio viewers as showcased in this gallery of Revue audition highlights

'Our aim is to test the balance between order and chaos, within the setting of the expected relaxing social ambience, of a cocktail bar. We will be contrasting the typical objects that you would find in a cocktail bar, with the unexpected props, such as paint, canvas, and test tubes. Our design concept is to take one member of the audience into the bar to order a drink. The drink would be made by the barmaids as one would expect in a bar, setting a sense of order in the scene. We would then encourage a second member of the audience to order a drink, but then the chaos would start.

Once the audience member has ordered a drink the first barmaid will take a prepared palette, with cocktail glasses containing different coloured paints and a blank canvas to the other end of the bar, where she sets up a space and begins painting abstract paint splashes in a precise manner.

The second barmaid begins to create a sculpture out of cherries and lime slices also in a very precise manner, detached from the scene around her.

The third barmaid will appear to be making the ordered drink, but is in fact filling the shakers with coloured paint, which she proceeds to throw against a blank canvas already positioned against the back wall. This introduces the element of chaos to the scene. The paint drips down the canvas into a rack of test tubes. Once she has done this with paint of a few different colours, she collects the test tubes, and carefully pours the contents of each test tube into a glass pre-prepared by the fruit sculptor. As a finishing touch she adds a sparkler, lights it, and places it in front of the confused audience member. The lights would then cut on the confused reactions to this scene, leaving the sparkler to fade.'

'The performance will consist of two parts: firstly, a series of people will move across the stage, selecting as they go a pair of shoes or a shoe to try on, chosen from a wide selection lined up at the front of the stage facing the audience. As each person tries on the shoes, the music will change, corresponding to the ‘mood’ of the shoe and providing a pace for the wearer to move to. The procession of people will continue until all the shoes have been tried on, and are now scattered around “randomly”. The second part of the piece will be a single person coming on stage to tidy up the shoes, trying on several pair as they do so. Again the music will reflect each pair of shoes. When they are all arranged in lines again, the piece will end.'

'Roulette will become an interaktiv sound game. Any action on the table, such as spinning the wheel an placing a bet on the table, will be monitored by two DJ (a la Daftpunk) who will control sounds for every move made. The Roulette table cloth will be newly designed in NEON colors to fit elecronic music.'

'The room will be dark, with a pile of three very old TVs stacked up on top of each other, with constantly flashing random images. There will be a chair in the centre of the room where a member of the audience will sit, they will also be connected up to a pulse monitor. Outside of the room will be another two old TVs screening the persons reaction and then on the other TV, the pulse monitor will be scanned . The audience watching this will have no idea whats happening inside of the room, e.g the audience will not know the person in the room is watching images.'

'The work i would like to present at SHOWstudio would be a multimedia performance titled One Clown Too Many.

One Clown Too Many is an observation of 3 clowns that always miss out and mistake. Using Live & recorded footage simultaneous with live performance that teach these three un-likely clowns a few lesson.

Previously i have collaborated with The Roundhouse, Station House Opera & Hampstead Theatre to develop new and interesting techniques in the world of mime and physical theatre.

I have attached documentation from a recent performance at All You Can Eat titled Little Jack Horner collaborating with designer Lee Benjamin. I hope this will give you an idea into the style of my work.'

'A solo, amplified, improvised vocal performance, which aims to challenge the convention of what music is and push the boundaries of singing. Each of my performances is unique and is inspired and affected by the space I am performing in. The atmosphere, the acoustics and the audience are very much a key to the nature of each performance.

The performance is totally improvised and evolves in a ‘stream of consciousness’ manner. It is very much true to the moment and can be seen as a composition in real time. I use a wide range of vocal expressions, emotions and dynamics, text, phonetics and nonsense sounds. I blur the definitions between different styles of singing and I am influenced by opera, noise, punk- rock, pop, concrete poetry, DADA and performance art. I also utilise electronic toys, effects pedals and props for sound making. I never quite know what a performance would be like. I welcome the unexpected. I like to challenge my self. It makes me feel alive.

'What I want to propose for a performance is a battle. A LIVE battle of a supposed battle-game in which you can choose types -like religious, DJ, clan, racial, sexual, etc- battles.

From the Playstation point of view: a descend fighting game is always fun to play, the moves are great and the sounds are grotesk.

Moving matter is sound, everything is moving and there is constant sound, in this battle each opponent has a range of samples which are triggered via parts where the body will be hit.

The samples can be words, music, soundfx. The purpose is to show you can force people to say things they don't want to or to make mash out of a song, just by twisting sound via a combination of punches. There is no real interactive element unless you are th e player, as with any sport. Viewers can act as if they know the game, so we could have a coach shouting in a mic trying to take control of their player. I would love to visit London to produce this performance as a project for SHOWStudio and I would like to get hold of a videoclip which can be presented at art festivals.'

'Performance collage. Being interested in the power that the viewer is given by the provided video camera, and also in the question of ownership of an ephemeral image, Cwtch will produce an enquiry into the relation of performer and audience participation within a space.

Cwtch will perform both live in the space and also through live link-up, therefore creating a parallel between the virtual and live audiences and performers. Dressed in uniform and with their skin concealed by a literal collage the performers will begin to deconstruct their image and reveal themselves to the audience.

By controlled fashioning of the audience and their video capturing, using choreographed gestures towards them, Cwtch aim to create a dialogue, which engages the audience generated material and affects the style of the final edited video.'

'Natalie Monroe's Lynch style revision of classic songs teamed with a vodka and cigarette rasp is the new take on lounge singing. To be performed in the piano bar to a home made soundtrack of warped cabaret-karaoke classics and live visuals.'

'My show is called Bubbles and involves myself getting into a giant lifesize balloon. Under the brief of the piano bar my act incorporates Cabaret, Sleaze and Surprize. Once i am inside this white balloon i change my headress and pop my head out of the baloon and begin to blow bubbles. I then disappear back inside the balloon and from the inside pop it to reveal myself completely changed into another outfit holding a smaller balloon. I then pop this balloon to reveal a small heart balloon. This act plays on the idea of russian dolls and also looks amazing as the spectacle of a giant balloon is blown up. It would suit the piano area perfectly.'

About

In April 2007, SHOWstudio staged Revue - a live ‘happening’ in association with PlayStation 3. The event was attended by an intimate audience of fifty guests at a secret London location, all action broadcast live on SHOWstudio. Revue created a dynamic performance space in which six different ‘zones’ were defined by a series of experimental situations that took inspiration from fashion, music or art.

Auditions were open to the public, each submitting images or video to propose their Revue performance documented online alongside the original brief. Acts on the night included: Neon E Roulette; Strip Me Bare; CWTCH; Natalie Monroe; Aitor Throup and Jez Tozer; and Natalie Fish and Russell Sage.

During Revue, members of the audience were given video cameras on which to document the evening’s events. The dynamic revelry of the performances was documented by the guests themselves: the rushes from the night were used in the final edit of a film, and their impromptu imagery is also showcased in a gallery of stills.